Sprinting

Sometimes we run away from things. Sometimes we run towards things. And sometimes we just run.

In the spring of 1980, I was living on the upper west side of New York City, just off the campus of Columbia University. A junior at a college in another state, I had gotten an internship in mid-town Manhattan and, in order to save some money, slept on the floor of my brother’s walk-up studio apartment on 115th street. For a non-urbanite, the city was an exciting place to live; there was no shortage of opportunities to learn about cuisine, the arts, music, and the diversity of the human condition. There was, however, limited access to exercise facilities. And I was a person who needed to exercise.

Running helped keep me sane. I wasn’t the happiest of twenty year-olds, a young man with a mind that ran incessantly and a body that didn’t seem to fit its clothing or surroundings. My collegiate junior year, thus far, had been stressful, leaving me out-of-shape, overweight, and unfulfilled. So I took to the streets and parks of NYC, in search of respite through distance running. It didn’t work. With all the traffic lights and intersections, it was too difficult for to find a stride and a rhythm that relaxed. A run, in fact, almost made me more unsettled.

But one day, by happenstance, I noticed something about the upper west side of Manhattan between 115th and 110th streets. The traffic lights, while not timed, did have a certain rhythm. At a brisk pace, and beginning just when the first traffic light turned green, I could reliably run five city blocks without needing to stop. And five city blocks, I decided after a little investigation, was about a quarter mile. Ahha! If I couldn’t get myself into a distance running routine, I realized that I could devise my own “track” work-out on street named Broadway.

If you’ve ever run “intervals” on a track, you know that it can be challenging to run a series of single lap sprints without a running partner. There is nothing to chase, no one to keep pace with, and you always end up where you began. Striding on the busy streets of Manhattan brought more visual stimulation than an oval track. It also had some inherent dangers (things called cars, taxis, etc), requiring a heightened vigilance. But, despite the advantages, there was still the problem of motivation. Beating the lights and bettering my previous times down the five block linear track still left something to be desired.

Until one glorious day when I found the perfect running partner, a jackrabbit made for urban street pursuit: the city bus. With stops at both 115th and 110th streets, and a schedule that regularly supplied new chrome-bumpered hares, the exhaust-spewing public conveyors, I discovered, were ideal training companions. It took a work-out or two for me to get all the timing kinks resolved – bus arrivals weren’t uniformly in sync with the traffic lights. Within a week or so, however, I sorted out the details. And, quite mysteriously and wonderfully, I found a perfect urban training partner.

You may think it is difficult to beat a bus in a race. It is not. In fact, even with a beautiful stream of green lights and traffic moving at a nice clip, I quickly learned that the bus wasn’t too challenging a competitor. So I gave it a head start. And that – now that – added some spice to the whole scenario.

Picture it: a guy jogs in place at the corner of Broadway and 115th Street. A bus arrives at the corner, exchanging passengers with the pavement. If the traffic light is red when the bus is stopped, the scene is set. The light turns green. The bus starts. The runner moves into the street and waits for the bus to reach 114th street. Then bang! The runner is off. With a walkman in one hand, circa 1979 headphones pushed over his ears, and a bouncing cord connecting controls and sound, the sprinter focuses on the advertisement plastered to the bus’s behind and drops everything else from his view. If he is lucky, a taxi doesn’t stop between him and the bus, or a silly pedestrian doesn’t jaywalk, or some other obstacle doesn’t unexpectedly break his concentration. He isn’t timing himself. He isn’t running for the stares of New Yorkers on the Broadway sidewalks or the bus interior. He is simply racing the motorized machine with massive tires to 110th street. He is chasing something that may not know it is being chased.

Usually, he wins. But not always. It doesn’t matter though. Win or lose, the runner slows at the corner of Broadway and 110th, turns, and lightly jogs back up the sidewalk to 115th street. On the return trip, he considers the density of the traffic, wonders whether there is a difference between engine capability based on the year that the bus was made. He’s pretty sure that, over time, some of the drivers have noticed him, have realized that he waits for them at 115th street, and have decided to take up the spirit of the Broadway sprint because he can feel some buses accelerating more than usual like an athlete who senses being passed and finds another level of effort from deep “in the tank”. Also, from time to time, a driver smiles, smirks, or waves. Some see him. He sees them.

You haven’t lived until you’ve sprinted down one of life’s Broadways – not because you need to, not because you are late or you are unsafe or because you want to catch a ride from a bus when it stops at 110th street – but instead because you find joy in the experience, you fill with exhilaration at moving with the same speed as technology, you yearn to release thought to the flow of movement that is a busy city street in Manhattan. And you survive the moment.

Our sprints in life are not always about winning or losing. They can be about being. They can be about achieving breathlessness for its own sake.

Sometimes we run away from things. Sometimes we run towards things. And sometimes we just run.

In the spring of 1980, I was living on the upper west side of New York City, just off the campus of Columbia University. A junior at a college in another state, I had gotten an internship in mid-town Manhattan and, in order to save some money, slept on the floor of my brother’s walk-up studio apartment on 115th street. For a non-urbanite, the city was an exciting place to live; there was no shortage of opportunities to learn about cuisine, the arts, music, and the diversity of the human condition. There was, however, limited access to exercise facilities. And I was a person who needed to exercise.

Running helped keep me sane. I wasn’t the happiest of twenty year-olds, a young man with a mind that ran incessantly and a body that didn’t seem to fit its clothing or surroundings. My collegiate junior year, thus far, had been stressful, leaving me out-of-shape, overweight, and unfulfilled. So I took to the streets and parks of NYC, in search of respite through distance running. It didn’t work. With all the traffic lights and intersections, it was too difficult for to find a stride and a rhythm that relaxed. A run, in fact, almost made me more unsettled.

But one day, by happenstance, I noticed something about the upper west side of Manhattan between 115th and 110th streets. The traffic lights, while not timed, did have a certain rhythm. At a brisk pace, and beginning just when the first traffic light turned green, I could reliably run five city blocks without needing to stop. And five city blocks, I decided after a little investigation, was about a quarter mile. Ahha! If I couldn’t get myself into a distance running routine, I realized that I could devise my own “track” work-out on street named Broadway.

If you’ve ever run “intervals” on a track, you know that it can be challenging to run a series of single lap sprints without a running partner. There is nothing to chase, no one to keep pace with, and you always end up where you began. Striding on the busy streets of Manhattan brought more visual stimulation than an oval track. It also had some inherent dangers (things called cars, taxis, etc), requiring a heightened vigilance. But, despite the advantages, there was still the problem of motivation. Beating the lights and bettering my previous times down the five block linear track still left something to be desired.

Until one glorious day when I found the perfect running partner, a jackrabbit made for urban street pursuit: the city bus. With stops at both 115th and 110th streets, and a schedule that regularly supplied new chrome-bumpered hares, the exhaust-spewing public conveyors, I discovered, were ideal training companions. It took a work-out or two for me to get all the timing kinks resolved – bus arrivals weren’t uniformly in sync with the traffic lights. Within a week or so, however, I sorted out the details. And, quite mysteriously and wonderfully, I found a perfect urban training partner.

You may think it is difficult to beat a bus in a race. It is not. In fact, even with a beautiful stream of green lights and traffic moving at a nice clip, I quickly learned that the bus wasn’t too challenging a competitor. So I gave it a head start. And that – now that – added some spice to the whole scenario.

Picture it: a guy jogs in place at the corner of Broadway and 115th Street. A bus arrives at the corner, exchanging passengers with the pavement. If the traffic light is red when the bus is stopped, the scene is set. The light turns green. The bus starts. The runner moves into the street and waits for the bus to reach 114th street. Then bang! The runner is off. With a walkman in one hand, circa 1979 headphones pushed over his ears, and a bouncing cord connecting controls and sound, the sprinter focuses on the advertisement plastered to the bus’s behind and drops everything else from his view. If he is lucky, a taxi doesn’t stop between him and the bus, or a silly pedestrian doesn’t jaywalk, or some other obstacle doesn’t unexpectedly break his concentration. He isn’t timing himself. He isn’t running for the stares of New Yorkers on the Broadway sidewalks or the bus interior. He is simply racing the motorized machine with massive tires to 110th street. He is chasing something that may not know it is being chased.

Usually, he wins. But not always. It doesn’t matter though. Win or lose, the runner slows at the corner of Broadway and 110th, turns, and lightly jogs back up the sidewalk to 115th street. On the return trip, he considers the density of the traffic, wonders whether there is a difference between engine capability based on the year that the bus was made. He’s pretty sure that, over time, some of the drivers have noticed him, have realized that he waits for them at 115th street, and have decided to take up the spirit of the Broadway sprint because he can feel some buses accelerating more than usual like an athlete who senses being passed and finds another level of effort from deep “in the tank”. Also, from time to time, a driver smiles, smirks, or waves. Some see him. He sees them.

You haven’t lived until you’ve sprinted down one of life’s Broadways – not because you need to, not because you are late or you are unsafe or because you want to catch a ride from a bus when it stops at 110th street – but instead because you find joy in the experience, you fill with exhilaration at flying with the same speed as technology, you yearn to release thought to the flow of movement that is a busy city street in Manhattan. And you survive the moment.

Our sprints in life are not always about winning or losing. They can be about being. They can be about achieving breathlessness for its own sake.

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